November 6, 2020
Corstone in partnership with IEE Rwanda and other partners are implementing a program dubbed ‘Youth First’ that will provide Rwandan students especially those in their first year of secondary school with skills that will help them to thrive amidst challenges.
Currently, IEE is holding trainings for Master trainers who will help in teacher training and those teachers will in turn deliver the intended message to the targeted students. This has been going on for close to a fortnight where the Master Trainers have been trained on how to deliver the skills to the teachers.
According to Jane Nungari, IEE Consultant, ‘Youth First’ is a new program in Rwanda but emphasizes that it is evidence based.
‘’It was first tried in India and at the moment, it is also being implemented in Kenya and Rwanda is the third country in the world where this program is getting implemented,’’ she said.
Just like the name of the program, ‘Youth First’ will give attention to the needs of the youths in secondary school especially when it comes to developing resilience, problem solving, benefit finding, assertive communication, ability to identify their character strengths and using them in their everyday life among others,’’ Jane stated.
‘Youth First’ will also focus on giving the youths health knowledge as this will help them understand the changes that are taking place in their bodies and will in turn be able to take care of their bodies. It has been noted that there are very many stereotypes associated with changes in bodies of youths but this program will help the youths better understand their bodies and how to manage them.
In the current academic year, ‘Youth First’ will target a total of five schools, two in Bugesera District and the other three in Gasabo.
According to Jane, she hopes that by the end of this program, the youths are going to be able to improve on their resilience, work on their self-esteem, self-efficacy, improve on their behaviors, personal hygiene, inter-personal relationships as well as overall academic performance because one of the issues ‘Youth First’ will tackle is setting goals and achieving them.
Reactions to this content may be addressed to: ieerwanda.directorate.org@gmail.com